Modelling the ATSF in 1970 in HO

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Re: DCC - I definitely agree many Model Railroads use DCC with sound very effectively.  If I was starting from scratch in the hobby I'd probably go down that route, particularly for American modelling. 

 

As it is, for me, I would want to retain compatibility with my UK DC stuff, some of which dates back to the 1970s, at least for now.  There is a financial consideration - not in terms of value (the case is proven), just £s.

 

On 07/11/2020 at 11:50, Oldddudders said:

Use of DC is not a problem on a layout that will not realistically see many trains on-scene at any one time. If you ever want sound, though, that works a great deal better with DCC, simply because you have easy access to a greater range of effects. But if you use the best of wiring regimes in construction, then later conversion to DCC will never be difficult. 

 

"Future proofing" the wiring like this is a great idea nevertheless - it's forty years (plus) since I soldered anything, so I need some practice, but it's a great thought if I go beyond the diorama stage to a full layout.

 

14 hours ago, mdvle said:

Can you make a successful layout with DC only?  Absolutely.

 

However depending on what you want/layout size DCC can make American modelling a lot easier and/or a lot more fun.

 

If you are modelling anything that had more than a single loco on the train, then DCC has obvious benefits.

 

If you are really interesting in doing switching, then DCC/Sound can add a lot given the American rules - things like sounding the horn/bell before moving a train, for every grade crossing, etc (this is why the new Genesis cabooses from Athearn have a sound option)

 

There can be valid reasons to not go down the DCC route, but just consider what you want to do with the layout.

 

Very good point on sound - it's not just the locos.  Again, I've seen model railroads do all this very effectively.

 

8 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

coaches with loksound decoders installed.

 

I've not come across sound in coaches before though.  Is that in HO or larger scales?

[JZ]

2 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I've not come across sound in coaches before though.  Is that in HO or larger scales?

You can get sound in HOn3 boxcars. Basically the clickety-clack of joints and rolling sound. Typically you would put it near the end of the train.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Thanks @mdvle - some really helpful pointers and questions.  I've covered some, but to answer a few more:

 

On 08/11/2020 at 04:08, mdvle said:

How precise do you wish to attempt things?  Do you want to research things so your roster is as accurate as you can make it, or is this more of a having fun and run stuff that interests you?

 

What is it about the dash-2 line that you don't like?

 

In terms of accuracy, I have basically no experience in scenic modelling: just a 7" x 7" BRM cakebox:

 

 

...so I'm happy at the "less realistic" end of the spectrum.  But if I can avoid too many glaring anachronisms either in the setting or the rolling stock, I think it will help sustain interest: I'm thinking long-term.

 

In terms of "Dash" units, it may be my incorrect use of terminology.  It's purely a matter of personal preference, but I'm not such a fan of the more modern units with the wide...er...fans (?) across the top.*  Should I be calling these 3rd (or 4th?) generation instead?  I think F-units and 2nd generation diesels are my personal favourites.

 

(* I think they may part of the dynamic braking systems - I could be totally wrong).

 

On 08/11/2020 at 17:04, mdvle said:

 

I wonder if you have a conflict here (again, depending on how accurate you wish to be).

 

You say you have chosen your era because the mail contracts were gone, so shorter trains, yet the switching of passenger operations interests you and that switching was largely based around those head end cars that are missing in your era.

 

For any not aware a search on Google for "<location> sanborn maps" will bring up the LOC options (if they exist) for the fire insurance maps for the place you are interested in.  Copyright means you won't get anything newer than about 1920 online but it can be a start in many cases, though by your era much of the track would likely have been removed as industries went to road transport.

 

 

Ah! Re: Head-end switching, I may have caught myself out here.  I've been thinking in terms of 8 types of passenger train switching:

 

1.  RPO and Mail (the one which doesn't apply in the era I'm looking at).

2.  REA - which I thought continued until the early 1970s? 

3.  Express Reefers - not sure how long these continued to appear in passenger consists?

4.  Baggage cars - or do these remain with their coaches?

5.  Diners - needing a Commissary

6.  Pullmans - do these also go to the Commissary?

7.  Trains dividing into sections.

8.  Turning Observation cars (unlikely to feature in my thinking, but worth mentioning historically).

 

Thank you for the pointer on Sanborn maps.  I've seen them in the Layout Plans thread, but didn't know the dates.  A combination with Google for present day views would make for interesting research.  I'm not looking for anything specific - but it's always worth seeing how the reality looks.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Keith Addenbrooke
Reinstating photos

[PaulRhB]

47 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Re: DCC - I definitely agree many Model Railroads use DCC with sound very effectively.  If I was starting from scratch in the hobby I'd probably go down that route, particularly for American modelling. 

 

As it is, for me, I would want to retain compatibility with my UK DC stuff, some of which dates back to the 1970s, at least for now.  There is a financial consideration - not in terms of value (the case is proven), just £s.

 

 

"Future proofing" the wiring like this is a great idea nevertheless - it's forty years (plus) since I soldered anything, so I need some practice, but it's a great thought if I go beyond the diorama stage to a full layout.

 

 

Very good point on sound - it's not just the locos.  Again, I've seen model railroads do all this very effectively.

 

 

I've not come across sound in coaches before though.  Is that in HO or larger scales?

Sorry it should have commas the decoders are in the locos.  

9 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Should enjoy this then  I’ve got a four unit set A-B-B-A, and coaches, with loksound decoders installed. Happiness is guaranteed!

They are HO and Athearn Genesis units picked up over time on eBay, it took several months to find them all. 
In freight service on one of the modular meets  

Edited November 8, 2020 by PaulRhB

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, PaulRhB said:

 

They are HO and Athearn Genesis units picked up over time on eBay, it took several months to find them all. 

I get the feeling that eBay plays quite a big part in US modelling here in the UK.  It’s actually something I’ve never used, but gets mentioned a lot in threads on RMweb (again, with helpful advice I’ve been taking note of).

[mdvle]

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

In terms of accuracy, I have basically no experience in scenic modelling: just a 7" x 7" BRM cakebox:

 

that is more scenic modelling than I have ever done.

 

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

In terms of "Dash" units, it may be my incorrect use of terminology.  It's purely a matter of personal preference, but I'm not such a fan of the more modern units with the wide...er...fans (?) across the top.*  Should I be calling these 3rd (or 4th?) generation instead?  I think F-units and 2nd generation diesels are my personal favourites.

 

So, sadly the North American diesels aren't clearly defined in terms of generations.

 

First, Dash can be confusing.  It was used by GE directly, and also by railfans for a specific line of EMD diesels in the 70s (usually considered say the second half of the second generation) - essentially where EMD took their existing product lineup and made some (predominately interior) upgrades and signified the new product by adding a "-2" to the name - hence the SD40 became the SD40-2.

 

As for generations, some go by the EMD engine, some more by time, so for example the GP/SD 30/35 are first generation to some, second generation to others.  But it roughly equates to around the early1960's for the second generation to start.

 

3rd generation isn't really a defined thing, some sort of indicate anything after the GP/SD60 when there was another big jump in the size/power of the locos.

 

As for the top of the long hood - there are 2 sets of fans in your era - the first, usually 1 or 2 fans with a slightly wider "blister", located about middle of the long hood, are the dynamic brake fans - used to draw air over the grid of heating elements that would dissipate the energy from using the traction motors to brake.  Not all locos had dynamic brakes, it was an option, so it may or may not be seen (dynamic brakes were more popular in hilly/mountain territories).

 

This wiki photo of a GP35 shows the dynamic brake blister

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_GP35#/media/File:BNSF_2500_EMD_GP35.jpg

 

The fans at the end of the long hood (typically 2 or 3) are for engine cooling.  Not much in the way of the "wide" fans in the 2nd generation from EMD, the SD45(-2) being the exception.

 

picture of an SD45 with its slightly wider cooling fan housing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD45#/media/File:Hustle_Muscle_Osceola.jpg )

 

vs the more typical SD40-2 cooling fan arrangement (with dynamic brake blister) - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/MRL_250.jpg

 

The other unique 2nd generation cooling fan arrangement was the so called tunnel motors, used by SP and D&RGW, where they dropped the air intake from up near the roof to down at the walkway to try and get cooler air while going through long tunnels - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD40-2#/media/File:SP_8238_CA_Caliente.jpg

 

GE was slightly wider than EMD in that era - here is a picture of a U33C in 1971 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_U33C#/media/File:Livingston_8_71_-_Flickr_-_drewj1946.jpg

 - but they weren't anywhere near as wide as what would come starting around 1980 with the GE Dash-8 series, and then in the 90s with the Dash-9/AC4400 from GE and the later SD70* from EMD.

 

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Ah! Re: Head-end switching, I may have caught myself out here.  I've been thinking in terms of 8 types of passenger train switching:

 

1.  RPO and Mail (the one which doesn't apply in the era I'm looking at).

2.  REA - which I thought continued until the early 1970s? 

 

A little bit, probably still involved some switching.

 

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

3.  Express Reefers - not sure how long these continued to appear in passenger consists?

4.  Baggage cars - or do these remain with their coaches?

 

Baggage cars typically remained with the train - you can see baggage carts with a high enough platform that they would be approximately level with the baggage cars at any reasonable sized station.

 

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

5.  Diners - needing a Commissary

 

Only at larger stations where the trains would be made up / broken down, and the coaches and other cars would also go for cleaning.

 

Otherwise they have doors in the sides for the loading of supplies mid-route.

 

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

6.  Pullmans - do these also go to the Commissary?

 

Pullmans are just sleeping cars operated by the Pullman company in North America, not sure if Pullman had their own facilities or needed the host railroads to do the work for them.

 

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Thank you for the pointer on Sanborn maps.  I've seen them in the Layout Plans thread, but didn't know the dates.  A combination with Google for present day views would make for interesting research.  I'm not looking for anything specific - but it's always worth seeing how the reality looks.

 

So for a long time there were what are commonly called fire insurance maps made in North America, designed for insurance companies so they could calculate what to charge for insurance.  They include a lot of details for that purpose that can be historically interesting - like what building materials used - in addition to the track layouts.

 

They will normally have a date on them, unless the person posting them has cropped that off.

 

Unfortunately copyright limits what can be posted online, but they can be available dated up until around the 1970s in library collections (or for purchase).  So for example the Toronto Reference Library has (in normal times) a collection of fire insurance maps for various places across Canada that can be viewed by anyone, and many University libraries also have collections of them that may be accessible to the public in normal times.

 

One can also try searching for aerial photography - it was common for states/provinces/cities to periodically commission aerial surveys to document their territory and in some cases these may be available to view online.

[PaulRhB]

54 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I get the feeling that eBay plays quite a big part in US modelling here in the UK.  It’s actually something I’ve never used, but gets mentioned a lot in threads on RMweb (again, with helpful advice I’ve been taking note of).

Yes and with less retailers here now, with Model Jn going recently, it’s useful for more too. There’s a lot of good stuff  I’ve found via eBay, here and abroad, I can’t get new as it was released a few years back. Model Jn was a great resource for the bits n pieces so I made the journey there once or twice a year and I haven’t found a substitute yet here. Always worth checking the net though as some US shops have very good shipping prices and I ended up getting my Bowser streetcars direct as it was the only way to get them all. 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

32 minutes ago, mdvle said:

but they weren't anywhere near as wide as what would come starting around 1980 with the GE Dash-8 series, and then in the 90s with the Dash-9/AC4400 from GE and the later SD70* from EMD.

 

Thank you - a really helpful explanation of the evolution of loco shapes.  It’s the wider Dash-8 and Dash-9 type (and some of the SD70s) that I’m not such a fan of visually, particularly when seen from above - as would be likely on any model I might build.

It’s most likely simply that I stopped keeping up with things around 1980 (for example, I only found out Horseshoe curve no longer has four tracks a few days ago, via RMweb), so my memories just don’t include the more modern shape.

[EmporiaSub]

3 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

 

Hi there - I may have a problem with the link: it just takes me to the Blogger home page so I can set up my own blog.  Is there an alternative link?  Sorry to be a nuisance.

It appears to be my computer that is the issue....

The link takes me to the pages I access to edit!

And the other link tells me it's not safe according to Google...

 

https://deadwoodcityrailroad.blogspot.com/

Edited November 8, 2020 by EmporiaSub

[Keith Addenbrooke]

9 hours ago, EmporiaSub said:

It appears to be my computer that is the issue....

The link takes me to the pages I access to edit!

And the other link tells me it's not safe according to Google...

 

https://deadwoodcityrailroad.blogspot.com/

That worked.  Had a look this morning: really enjoyable, thank you.  Took me a while to work out the track plan (I’d not figured out the peninsular until I saw the plan in a Feb 2017 blog).  Love the atmosphere and the sense of space.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Over the weekend I basically finished the centrepiece for an urban diorama I’ve been planning for a while:

 

 

I’ve always wanted to build a large city station, and had my eye on this kit for a while before I found an affordable one in the UK.  It is a basic Walthers kit, and perhaps a measure of the intended market that it comes with two sets of water slide transfers: one for ‘Union Station’ (which it wasn’t) and one for ‘Grand Central Station’ (which is a Post Office).  It appears on the front cover of MR in Oct 2018 on a layout - painted more of a sandstone yellow rather than the grey I’ve gone for.

 

I believe the prototype was the old Burlington Station in Omaha, Nebraska (as rebuilt in the early 1930s) - although that had five windows on each side wing.  Last I heard it was I a local TV Station (I think there’s a regular contributor to this Forum @dave1905 from Omaha who might know if it still is?).

 

 It’s not from Santa Fe country - an interchange at St Joseph, Kansas (near Atchison) seems to be as close as I can get.  Unfortunately, completing a large kit doesn’t increase my available hobby space...

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Keith Addenbrooke
Reinstating photos

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Keith,

I've just been catching up with RMweb after being offline for a week or so. This is an interesting subject and I feel you may be being bombarded with information, no offence to any previous posters!

 I recall that when I started in US outline, I just bought anything at all that was American and only later did I refine things. The learning process was part of the fun too.

May I suggest that you simply stick to anything "Santa Fe", not including the later "dash" series of locos, containerised stuff or "billboard" stuff as that was a much earlier period.

 I was greatly taken by Peter North's series of small layouts that featured in the "Continental Modeller" over a fairly long period - substitute your Santa Fe for Peters Rock Island and you're done!

One of the best things I always found about American outline modelling is that there are much fewer folk who come along and say "ooh, that's wrong" , at least, until we go online!

Cheers,

John

[Keith Addenbrooke]

39 minutes ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Keith,

I've just been catching up with RMweb after being offline for a week or so. This is an interesting subject and I feel you may be being bombarded with information, no offence to any previous posters!

 I recall that when I started in US outline, I just bought anything at all that was American and only later did I refine things. The learning process was part of the fun too.

May I suggest that you simply stick to anything "Santa Fe", not including the later "dash" series of locos, containerised stuff or "billboard" stuff as that was a much earlier period.

 I was greatly taken by Peter North's series of small layouts that featured in the "Continental Modeller" over a fairly long period - substitute your Santa Fe for Peters Rock Island and you're done!

One of the best things I always found about American outline modelling is that there are much fewer folk who come along and say "ooh, that's wrong" , at least, until we go online!

Cheers,

John

 

Hi there, thanks for the reply - as I noted at the top of the thread, your discussion starter earlier in the year has been instrumental.  The response has been great, as you note, but don't worry - it's been pitched just right for me: exactly what I need at this stage, and much appreciated.

 

Good pointer re: Peter North.  While I don't get CM, I've come across various references to his layouts (mostly named after his daughter I believe) and there was an RMweb thread about 10 years ago:  Question About Peter North's Layouts which is still available.  He certainly captured the atmosphere and in a space typically seen for UK train sets.  Looking at the photos, he seems to have hidden trackage more like a UK Fiddle Yard than US Staging, but he certainly makes it work really effectively.

 

Thanks, Keith.

[dave1905]

23 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Ah! Re: Head-end switching, I may have caught myself out here.  I've been thinking in terms of 8 types of passenger train switching:

 

1.  RPO and Mail (the one which doesn't apply in the era I'm looking at).

2.  REA - which I thought continued until the early 1970s? 

3.  Express Reefers - not sure how long these continued to appear in passenger consists?

4.  Baggage cars - or do these remain with their coaches?

5.  Diners - needing a Commissary

6.  Pullmans - do these also go to the Commissary?

7.  Trains dividing into sections.

8.  Turning Observation cars (unlikely to feature in my thinking, but worth mentioning historically).

 

Thank you for the pointer on Sanborn maps.  I've seen them in the Layout Plans thread, but didn't know the dates.  A combination with Google for present day views would make for interesting research.  I'm not looking for anything specific - but it's always worth seeing how the reality looks.

 

1.  In 1970, RPO and mail was virtually non-existant, so don't have to worry about switching that.

2.  REA declined in the 1960's and was minimal in the 1970's, REA ceased operations in 1975.

3.  Express reefers by the 1970's, those that were still around were mostly not used as reefers and were mostly used as express boxcars.  By the 1970's ice cooled reefers were very rare so there weren't even many icing facilites to ice them, even if a railroad wanted to use them as reefers.

 

There are different levels of passenger service.  There are the name trains, the secondary trains, and commuter trains.  

4.  Baggage cars generally stay with the trains.

5.  Diners might go to a commissary at either end of the run.  In the middle, no.

6.  Pullmans would not go to the commissary, but would have to be serviced as far as cleaning, linens and bedding.  That would only be done in major terminals.  Pullman stopped operating  sleeping car service in 1968.  So any sleeping cars would have been operated by the ATSF, not Pullman.  The ATSF would have bought the cars from Pullman.

7.  Since you seem to be striking out on a lot of your previous ideas, this one would be available, sort of.  By the 1970's passenger travel by rail was down so much that outside of the NE  corridor (PRR) not only did railroads no need sections, they were combining name trains.  So you wouldn't be combining or splitting sections, you would be combining or spitting trains.  The train from Texas to LA might be combined with the train from Chicago to LA in New Mexico and vice versa.  One train would run out of LA and it would split into a Texas and Chicago train in New Mexico. (Hypothetical example, not sure if they did that).

8.  Where the trains still have observation cars, the would have to be turned.

 

There are two other  types of switching that might enter ito it.

9.  Railroad business cars.  Every so often the Superintendent or General Manager's business car might be tacked on the back of a passenger train to make an inspection trip.

10.  Private cars.  People who own their own passengers cars would contract to have their cars added to a train when they wanted to make a trip.  http://www.aaprco.com/

 

In 1970 the American passenger train was on its death bed.  The only thing that had been propping it up were the mail contracts and they were gone.  Passenger trains were losing money hand over foot.  The only reason they were retained is the ICC wouldn't let the railroads abandon all the service.  The law that created Amtrak was passed in 1970 and Amtrak was formed in 1971, so you are literally modeling the very end, the last death throes of the private railroad passenger train in the US.  In 1970 the ATSF was just doing the minimum it could to bridge until it could dump the passenger service off to Amtrak and be done with it.

 

As far as Union Station goes, yes it was modeled after the CB&Q station in Omaha.  It is now a TV station, KETV.  Here are some 2005, shots before it was renovated.

 

 

[APOLLO]

Not ATSF, and not your era but here's a very interesting vid of the Rock Island in El Reno. F unit hauled (and pushed !!) RDC cars on passenger trains etc - virtually anything goes. One reason I (try) to model the Rock.

 

 

More here (including ATSF Warbonnets, Doodlebugs  etc - scroll down a bit.

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/AJ67901/videos

 

Found this also - late warbonnets small(ish) train

 

 

Brit15

Edited November 9, 2020 by APOLLO

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, dave1905 said:

 

1.  In 1970, RPO and mail was virtually non-existant, so don't have to worry about switching that.

2.  REA declined in the 1960's and was minimal in the 1970's, REA ceased operations in 1975.

3.  Express reefers by the 1970's, those that were still around were mostly not used as reefers and were mostly used as express boxcars.  By the 1970's ice cooled reefers were very rare so there weren't even many icing facilites to ice them, even if a railroad wanted to use them as reefers.

 

There are different levels of passenger service.  There are the name trains, the secondary trains, and commuter trains.  

4.  Baggage cars generally stay with the trains.

5.  Diners might go to a commissary at either end of the run.  In the middle, no.

6.  Pullmans would not go to the commissary, but would have to be serviced as far as cleaning, linens and bedding.  That would only be done in major terminals.  Pullman stopped operating  sleeping car service in 1968.  So any sleeping cars would have been operated by the ATSF, not Pullman.  The ATSF would have bought the cars from Pullman.

7.  Since you seem to be striking out on a lot of your previous ideas, this one would be available, sort of.  By the 1970's passenger travel by rail was down so much that outside of the NE  corridor (PRR) not only did railroads no need sections, they were combining name trains.  So you wouldn't be combining or splitting sections, you would be combining or spitting trains.  The train from Texas to LA might be combined with the train from Chicago to LA in New Mexico and vice versa.  One train would run out of LA and it would split into a Texas and Chicago train in New Mexico. (Hypothetical example, not sure if they did that).

8.  Where the trains still have observation cars, the would have to be turned.

 

There are two other  types of switching that might enter ito it.

9.  Railroad business cars.  Every so often the Superintendent or General Manager's business car might be tacked on the back of a passenger train to make an inspection trip.

10.  Private cars.  People who own their own passengers cars would contract to have their cars added to a train when they wanted to make a trip.  http://www.aaprco.com/

 

In 1970 the American passenger train was on its death bed.  The only thing that had been propping it up were the mail contracts and they were gone.  Passenger trains were losing money hand over foot.  The only reason they were retained is the ICC wouldn't let the railroads abandon all the service.  The law that created Amtrak was passed in 1970 and Amtrak was formed in 1971, so you are literally modeling the very end, the last death throes of the private railroad passenger train in the US.  In 1970 the ATSF was just doing the minimum it could to bridge until it could dump the passenger service off to Amtrak and be done with it.

 

As far as Union Station goes, yes it was modeled after the CB&Q station in Omaha.  It is now a TV station, KETV.  Here are some 2005, shots before it was renovated.

 

 

Thank you - really helpful and some great photos (even if the building was in such disrepair at the time).  Sounds like a smart move by KETV - though I expect it cost them a bit.

 

I’d not got the 1968 end date for Pullman operating sleepers so that’s really useful.  
 

The end of the 1960s have a personal interest for me - it’s when I was born, but also the historical one: the chance to include a bigger station when it was legitimately seeing little use.  I definitely won’t have the space (ever!) to do justice to passenger trains in their heyday, but there’ll be less switching as a consequence.

[dave1905]

The alternative is to do the ATSF area passenger service right after Amtrak.  Might let you throw in some odd cars from other roads (PC, SP, GN) and maybe an engine or two from another road (a ratty ex PC E-8).

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

Not ATSF, and not your era but here's a very interesting vid of the Rock Island in El Reno. F unit hauled (and pushed !!) RDC cars on passenger trains etc - virtually anything goes. One reason I (try) to model the Rock.

 

 

More here (including ATSF Warbonnets, Doodlebugs  etc - scroll down a bit.

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/AJ67901/videos

 

Found this also - late warbonnets small(ish) train

 

 

Brit15

Thank you - I’ve not had time to scroll through the YouTube link yet, but the two embedded videos are great.

 

The reversing push into the station at 3.00mins in the Rock Island Video is done at some speed - were the RDC units used for “push-pull” control?  (May not be the right terminology - it’s what we might call it in the UK).  The station scenes show the high-level / large wheel baggage carts used to reach the train doors for loading from the low / minimal platforms.

 

The other video has some impressive lash-ups! (Easy to see why the later generation diesels were brought in with even more power!).  Interesting to see how most of the clips cut off after the head end power has passed: film was a precious commodity to be used sparingly too in the pre-digital age (I only noticed one caboose in the whole film!).

 

Really good, thank you.

 

[APOLLO]

Not sure about the RDC cab controlling the train, perhaps the conductor (guard) was watching the road in there and had his hand on the brake "just in case" during such reverse moves.

 

Brit15

[Nick_Burman]

14 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

The reversing push into the station at 3.00mins in the Rock Island Video is done at some speed - were the RDC units used for “push-pull” control?

 

No - however either the conductor or one of the brakemen must have been on rear platform instructing the driver through the communication cord.

 

Cheers Nicholas

 

 

 

 

 

[dave1905]

The "Choctaw Rocket" was operated in the 1950's with RDC's, becoming the longest RDC route in the US.  By the time they were downgraded to what was shown, I would imagine that they used an RDC because that what was on it but they RDC's were wore out, so they assigned an FP7 and conventional  baggage/mail storage cars to the train.  RDC were not designed to haul non-RDC cars, their drive systems weren't robust enough to do that on a regular basis.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

10 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Not sure about the RDC cab controlling the train, perhaps the conductor (guard) was watching the road in there and had his hand on the brake "just in case" during such reverse moves.

 

Brit15

 

10 hours ago, Nick_Burman said:

 

No - however either the conductor or one of the brakemen must have been on rear platform instructing the driver through the communication cord.

 

Cheers Nicholas

 

Thank you - that would fit with the film, which didn’t imply that the driver changed ends at the junction (but I wouldn’t know how much had been edited).  Looking up the Rock Island, I’d not appreciated just how big a Class I line it was.

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

 

Thank you - that would fit with the film, which didn’t imply that the driver changed ends at the junction (but I wouldn’t know how much had been edited).  Looking up the Rock Island, I’d not appreciated just how big a Class I line it was.

It is also a most interesting line to model in the diesel era, because it had early diesels - those pre-war E3s and E6s were preceded by  the bespoke TAs - and it had a weakness for any diesel it saw. A very mixed collection of power indeed, right down to Whitcomb and Davenport products. 

[dave1905]

While you're at it, an American train doesn't have a "driver", it has an engineer.  

 

The Rock was in its death throes in 1970 and went bankrupt in 1975, finally died around 1980.  Its problem is it went the same places as other railroads, but by a longer route.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

2 hours ago, dave1905 said:

While you're at it, an American train doesn't have a "driver", it has an engineer.  

 

The Rock was in its death throes in 1970 and went bankrupt in 1975, finally died around 1980.  Its problem is it went the same places as other railroads, but by a longer route.

Thanks - “engineer” was the term I grew up knowing, but quoting a post above I presumed prevailing terminology might have changed so went with the flow.  This could launch a whole new discussion, but is there a technical distinction between a “Station” and a “Depot” for me to note? (just one example I was wondering about - there will be loads more of course).

 

As for The Rock: “it went the same places as other railroads, but by a longer route” sounds  a lot like my modelling.  I think I’ll stick with the Santa Fe.